COME FOLLOW ME
Luke 12 - 17; John 11
Commentary by Lynne Hilton Wilson Ph.D.
JESUS TRAVELED SOUTH AND VISITED BETHANY TO RAISE LAZARUS
Setting
After Jesus’ time teaching, preaching, and healing in Galilee, Luke’s Gospel follows Jesus and his traveling companions (including several women, Luke 8:1–2) on their journey from Galilee to Jerusalem for the Passover. This is the only Passover pilgrimage found in the Synoptic Gospels during in Jesus’ ministry. The nine chapters are filled with conversations, parables, healings, and teaching.1 In ancient Palestine, the preparations for Passover began weeks in advance.
John’s Gospel (John) is known as the Spiritual Gospel. Jesus’ discourses can stretch us to an eternal perspective and a spiritual view of life. In these four chapters, John includes discussions of many opposites: the triumph of light over darkness, living water and spiritual thirst, eternal freedom over slavery to sin, spiritual inheritance over earthy lineage, physical blindness, and spiritual blindness, 99 and 1, and good and bad shepherds.
​
